Roland: Saved or Damned?

[stone, rose, unfound door]

He is damned to be stuck in a continual loop until he gives up his quest for the Tower... which, by doing that, is his form of salvation.

I have to agree on this one. Maybe someone can explain how people can be so sure that getting the horn is enough proof for knowing it is the last loop before salvation?
After all, we never knew how many loops Roland has been through and when they started each time, so perhaps it starts at a totally different period of his life every time he starts on the journey again and it's his biggest fault (in the story that's told in the books, it'd be leaving Jake to die) that's used as a starting point. In the case of Jake's betrayal, the story couldn't start in the way station because Roland had to do and see some things before he met Jake, so that'd be why the loop starts back at the point when Roland's chasing the man in black. That's just what I think, though.

[Jean]

I have to agree on this one. Maybe someone can explain how people can be so sure that getting the horn is enough proof for knowing it is the last loop before salvation?

I don't see it as a proof, I see it as a sign. To my mind, everything Roland had done by then - in the loop we saw - is proof enough. The only thing I don't know is what more he can do.

[stone, rose, unfound door]

I have to agree on this one. Maybe someone can explain how people can be so sure that getting the horn is enough proof for knowing it is the last loop before salvation?

I don't see it as a proof, I see it as a sign. To my mind, everything Roland had done by then - in the loop we saw - is proof enough. The only thing I don't know is what more he can do.

I know a lot of people have discussed it in TDT.net, but I'm still not sure this is going to be the last loop. It could just be another one in which he gets closer to achieving his quest as he calls getting at the top of the Tower. I'd also like to see what more he can do... maybe with a little luck, we'll get some info in the comics?

[Pere Callahan]

As long as he makes the choice to enter the Tower, i believe that he is damned. I don't think the tower belongs to anyone. I think it (the Tower) is Kings representation of God and is to be unquestioned. Roland's pride fools him to believe that his quest is to reach the Tower, when in truth (as he learns when he receives his watch) he is only supposed to save the beams.
Roland is purgatory bound until he realizes this.

Is King Catholic?

[Empath of the White]

Has anyone considered the part from Wizard and Glass when the Turtle is speaking to Roland? He tells the gunslinger that the Tower will be pent shut against him...to which he responds that when he reaches the Tower it will not stand. At first I wondered it it wasn't a trick by the Ageless or one of the others Walter prophesied about. But what if Roland inadvertently damned himself right there?

[Jean]

Is King Catholic?

No, he isn't. I, however, am, and nothing I have ever read by King, even such extremeties as the Dark Tower with its structure of the God/multiverse relationship dissolved in eclectic, degenerated mythology of a world that has moved on, ever clashed with my beliefs. A very good observation, Pere, thank you! (even though I disagree with the specifics of your theory)

[Letti]

Considering that Roland is returned to the point just before he met Jake (while searching for the Tower) I think he is doomed till he can fix his first and most horrid action in the story. That being the allowing to die of a complete innocent in his pursuit for the Tower.

Everyone else that died had some sort of shadow on their soul. Jake, on the other hand was clean at that point of his story. I feel that as soon as he sacrifices the boy the rest of his destiny is written.

But, I may be completely wrong

That's exactly how I feel as well. We might be wrong of course but I feel it so true. So "whole"... but I believe Roland needs to do some more (or many) loops to be able to choose Jake at the right moment.

[stone, rose, unfound door]

Has anyone considered the part from Wizard and Glass when the Turtle is speaking to Roland? He tells the gunslinger that the Tower will be pent shut against him...to which he responds that when he reaches the Tower it will not stand. At first I wondered it it wasn't a trick by the Ageless or one of the others Walter prophesied about. But what if Roland inadvertently damned himself right there?

If, like most of the people here, you agree on the fact that Roland's given a chance to start again, then he should have started back when he's talking with the Turtle. But since he's not, I guess he's not damned from that moment on, but as someone else said, when he betrays a complete innocent for the Tower.

[LadyHitchhiker]

You inspired me Letti, and I made this:

[Brainslinger]

Jake's got breasts! ^^^^^^

[Brice]

[alinda]

[LadyHitchhiker]

It's not supposed to be Jake! It's supposed to be Roland and Susan!

[Brainslinger]

It's not supposed to be Jake! It's supposed to be Roland and Susan!

Don't mind me, I was being silly.

From that angle, her hairstyle does look a bit boyish though doesn't it? (It's probably long, but it looks like that kind of 'slightly too long' style a lot of young American boys seem to have. At least, how they're depicted in a lot of films and TV. Think McCauley Caulkin and the urchin from The Phantom Menace.)

[razz]

here's a question: the only time he can give up his quest for the tower is after he defeats Mordred and the Crimson King. Because even though saving the universe was only a side quest, what is the point of living without the tower, if all of existence is destroyed?

[Letti]

here's a question: the only time he can give up his quest for the tower is after he defeats Mordred and the Crimson King. Because even though saving the universe was only a side quest, what is the point of living without the tower, if all of existence is destroyed?

There are some certain people (for example me) who don't think the Tower was in real danger at all.

[razz]

Good point. and i just did what annoys me in some cases: i thought in only three dimensions. I assumed the physical would destroy the mental (or spiritual) tower. despite the fact that in many cases they mentioned there being representations of the tower in other world (the Rose, the dog named Rover, etc.), but never thought that the tower just represented something greater. If a terrorist kills a US representative, it doesn't necessarily mean America will die because of that.

[Woofer]

I have to agree on this one. Maybe someone can explain how people can be so sure that getting the horn is enough proof for knowing it is the last loop before salvation?

I don't see it as a proof, I see it as a sign. To my mind, everything Roland had done by then - in the loop we saw - is proof enough. The only thing I don't know is what more he can do.

I know a lot of people have discussed it in TDT.net, but I'm still not sure this is going to be the last loop. It could just be another one in which he gets closer to achieving his quest as he calls getting at the top of the Tower. I'd also like to see what more he can do... maybe with a little luck, we'll get some info in the comics?

I, too, do not think it is necessarily the last loop, but it is a sign that Roland progressed in the last one. However, I also feel that it is possible for Roland to regress on these loops and move even further from salvation.

[razz]

well there's a thought! That's the first time I've heard that Roland might make things worse on a loop. Remember that he can't exactly learn from past mistakes, since he doesn't remember them (unless it's subconscious, which might explain how they know just what to do in some places: they've done) it before. Maybe he already had the horn before, but due to a fuck up in a previous loop he was set back a few notches.

[Gantoad]

Each turning of Ka's wheel a chance for some change, a slight difference with each, either further to or away from salvation. I just wonder if he even picked the right Tower.

[Kingfanatic260]

I don't think Roland ever cries off the tower no matter if he has the horn or not.

[Letti]

I don't think Roland ever cries off the tower no matter if he has the horn or not.

May I ask why you think this way?

[Kingfanatic260]

I don't think Roland ever cries off the tower no matter if he has the horn or not.

May I ask why you think this way?

I feel this way because I feel like he is damned to continue the same cycle. As much as I want to believe that he will do something to save his soul I just feel like he has it ingrained in him to seek out the Dark Tower and it's power no matter what the cost. The horn may change something about the story but in my opinion I believe he still seeks out the tower and never cries off. I was very disappointed at how it turned out for Roland because I really like him but this is how I see it.

[Letti]

I don't think Roland ever cries off the tower no matter if he has the horn or not.

May I ask why you think this way?

I feel this way because I feel like he is damned to continue the same cycle. As much as I want to believe that he will do something to save his soul I just feel like he has it ingrained in him to seek out the Dark Tower and it's power no matter what the cost. The horn may change something about the story but in my opinion I believe he still seeks out the tower and never cries off. I was very disappointed at how it turned out for Roland because I really like him but this is how I see it.

But he has changed so much during the quest, hasn't he? He improved. He learned how to love... how to trust... how to exist. he faced himself. At the end he was ready to die instead of Jake.
So if we could see such a change from the first book where he was no more than a killing machine to the last one where he became a father and good leader to his tet why do you still feel he can't get rid of the loops?
There are so many positive signs.

[The Lady of Shadows]

but he still entered the tower didn't he? was he even supposed to go into the tower? how can a mere mortal enter the center of all existence? wasn't he just supposed to go and lay the items at it's foot? isn't it pure roland-ness to presume that he is fit to climb its stairs and see what lies at the top?

what gives him the right, over every creature in existence, to enter that which is sacred? that which holds the bonds of the universe together? that which allows worlds to keep spinning and lives to keep unfolding and stars to stay in the sky?

i know i'm not making much sense but while i do think he grew slightly during the journey, i don't think he grew enough. i think it's his arrogance that allowed him to think he could enter the tower in the first place, and that is and will continue to be his downfall - his arrogance. and so long as he thinks he can enter the tower, and actually does enter the tower, he will continue to fail.